First of all, I would like to thank the IWL for sponsoring this trip! It was truly an incredible experience that I will cherish forever. I learned a lot on the trip - from women's leadership and sustainability to different cultures and religions. I even attended some WAGL sessions that focused on bringing sustainability into school classrooms, which was reflective of my education major. I could talk about the U.A.E. and my experiences for hours, but for now I want to focus on a common theme that I noticed during the trip: paradoxes.
I first started to notice the paradoxes of the U.A.E. by the excessive amount of money that was spent on the conference. The buffet tables were never ending, there were huge bouquets of flowers, a fireworks display that definitely trumps any 4th of July celebration I have ever seen, and the goody bags we received were filled with gifts. I appreciated the fact that I felt like royalty at the conference, but I also recognized how unnecessary most of it was. I thought it was very ironic that at a sustainability conference they served plastic waterbottles (without recycling) and had endless amounts of fancy food (clearly more than any of us could have consumed). The Sheikh wanted to impress us by spending lots of money on making the conference over the top, but I was actually unimpressed with the unnecessary spending.
Another paradox that I noticed was how everyone seemed to love their government and no one said anything bad about it. Either the U.A.E. has something figured out to please everyone that every other national government does not, or there is still some level of censorship. As an American it was eerie to see the Sheikh's face plastered on billboards and at almost every venue we went to. I don't doubt that Sheikh Zayed made tremendous gains for the country (he founded Zayed University, which was originally an all girls college), but I find it peculiar that not one Emirati I talked to had anything bad to say about the government. I am indebted the U.A.E. government for hosting the amazing WAGL Conference that I was so fortunate to attend, but I wonder about their censorship...(also, all the media is still run by the government and there are rumors we heard about the Emiratis being allotted a financial allowance as long as they comply with the government)
Lastly, as a history major I find the irony between the Emirati's "history" and lack of it very interesting. Obviously the Emiratis have a history, but other than the poverty and desolation that plagued their society before the discovery of oil in the 1960s, there is not much recorded about their lives. Today, as tourists continue to flock to the U.A.E. as a vacation destination they expect museums and historical artifacts, so the country has created a "history" for themselves. A popular tourist attraction is a desert safari ride with camels, belly dancers, food, and dune buggy rides. Although some aspects of this tourist scheme are reflective of the Bedouin life, others (such as belly dancing) have no historical meaning and are only chosen because they are fun tourist attractions. Therefore, there is a paradox between the U.A.E.'s lack of history before the oil boom and what they have created as a "history" for tourist marketing purposes.
Regardless, I LOVED the trip, met lots of very friendly people, and often find myself trying to relive the experience by looking through pictures.
-Mackenzie
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